


Rubik's Cube

by ntldr



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Romantic Comedy, Sex Toys, Sideswipe can't even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:02:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9844109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ntldr/pseuds/ntldr
Summary: Non-sentient Cybertronian objects can also take multiple shapes sometimes, right?So one could change a particularly embarrassing device into a different form and hide it in plain sight,right??Love is so awkward.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is all BalloonArcade's fault. She came up with this idea, and I just added more words to it.

To this day, they weren’t even sure why Sideswipe had been sent to Prowl’s office. Prowl didn’t bother to write up a report afterwards, for once. That would mean reliving the experience. And Sideswipe certainly didn’t know why he’d been there. There were at least a dozen reasons he could have been called in that day. He’d been lucky that, even if Prowl had found some other offense, he would not have called him in twice after The Incident.

All that Sideswipe remembered was that Prowl had been lecturing him, and that he was bored. His mind wandered as soon as the words “Autobot Code” came up, because that meant that Prowl was about to start quoting it, and if there was anything to initiate a recharge early in Sideswipe’s processor, it was to recite the Autobot Code at him. His mind wandered, and he kept only half an audial on, listening for warning signs that Prowl was about to go to the next level and threaten to remove something from his quarters instead of writing him up for time in the brig, and while his thoughts wandered, so did his hands.

He was lucky that Prowl was such good friends with Jazz, and Jazz was a tactile learner. After realizing that some mechs just did better when they had something to grasp and mold as they pondered a difficult issue, as Jazz constantly demonstrated, Prowl had eased back from shooing Autobots away from toying with the chair, furniture, or small items on his desk or office when they were meeting with him. Sometimes this worked; Smokescreen tended to use inanimate objects to demonstrate proposed tactics, and Trailbreaker could de-stress a little if he had something to squeeze.

When Sideswipe had shown similar tactile habits, Prowl had let him play with some of his desktop items, within reason of course, and as long as he did not break anything and always returned them. Even when he was being yelled at, allowing him to grasp and manipulate personal items generated a measure of trust that helped them as fellow Autobots and brothers-in-arms in the long run.

However, Prowl’s doorwings stiffened when Sideswipe picked up a mech-sized recreation of a human puzzle-cube. A “Rubik's Cube,” Perceptor had called it, though only a few Autobots had taken up his offer to make copies for them. Something about getting all the colors on the same side.

The answer was obvious. Peel off the stickers, and put them back on the correct sides. But no, apparently they were encouraged to think _inside_ the box.

So Sideswipe had noticed how agitated Prowl had gotten by him picking up the Rubik's Cube, and interrupted the lecture to ask how he was supposed to solve it. Prowl sputtered, then said something loud, demanding his attention, but Sideswipe had found what he thought was a shortcut to solving it.

There was a certain measure of resistance if he pulled one side of the cube in the right direction. If that was the key to unlocking it, then maybe he wouldn’t have to try to figure out the pattern of twisting and turning the stupid thing after all…

He yelped as the cube suddenly grew warm, and dropped it back onto the desk.

There was the sound of a transformation.

Both mechs froze.

There was a time when Sideswipe had been driving through a wooded area and had come face-to-face with a skinny, brown, four-legged common Earth animal. A deer. It had been bedazzled by his headlights and stopped dead in the middle of the road.

He remembered that night in that instant because Prowl was mimicking the same expression as the deer.

The Rubik’s Cube continued to change shape, manipulate itself, _solve_ itself, and then…

The form it held at the end was definitely NOT a cube.

It was...long.

It was long. Not too skinny, and not too fat, though its tip curved in a small “C” shape.

Sideswipe’s jaw dropped.

One shaking finger pointed at the _thing_ that he never would have expected to see on Prowl’s desk, hidden in plain sight. Or, rather, never would have been something that Prowl would have put there himself.

“Is...is that…?!”

Before Prowl could clarify and How and Whys and WHATS, both of them jumped again as the false spike suddenly turned itself on and vibrated, bouncing along the top of the desk like a demented tap dancer.

It was then that Prowl finally sprang back to life and grabbed it. Hissing a swear as it fumbled around in his palm, he pressed a button on the flat underside of the false spike.

In seconds, he was once again holding a harmless Rubik’s Cube.

Both mechs continued to stare at each other in silence. Neither had any idea who was more horrified.

Slowly, very slowly, Prowl returned the cube back to the small holder that it had been resting in before Sideswipe had picked it up. The two sets of optics stayed locked on each other the entire time.

Whatever Prowl had been talking to Sideswipe about was completely forgotten.

The moment that the cube clicked back into it’s home base, Sideswipe sprang to his feet.

“Good conversation, Prowl.”

He then stiffened to attention, and bowed his entire upper half deeply, as if their culture had been less adopted from America and more to that of Japan.

And then he was gone, bolting down the hallway and out of sight. Prowl didn’t bother to call him, much less chase him.

The Autobot second-in-command slumped down in his chair, and it was a full joor before he could stop willing himself to melt into a puddle and spend the rest of his days hidden as a pile of goo under his desk.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was sometime after The Incident had been (mostly) forgotten to the two of them that the Autobots were celebrating a stupendous victory over the Decepticons and throwing themselves an impromptu party in the break room

Ironhide was arm-wrestling Brawn. Ratchet was hiccuping through old Cybertronian folk songs. Optimus Prime had long since passed out face-first on a table, and room was making a game of stacking their empty energon cubes on his head.

So the party was going great.

It was while the party was in full swing that Prowl and Sideswipe happened to bump into each other in the crowded room, the later characteristically giggling and whooping, the former uncharacteristically.

Both of them froze, and turned to each other, as the same thought must have crossed both of their minds, thanks to the jubilance of the party, the distraction of everyone else around them, and the addition of high-grade.

“...You know,” Sideswipe slurred, “I happened to notice that the _thing_ was _red._ You do that on purpose?”

Prowl nodded.

“You...think about…with me...”

Prowl nodded faster.

They stared at each other for a second longer.

Then Sideswipe grabbed Prowl’s upper arm, and half-led, half-dragged him back to his office, and the harmless, unsuspecting little Rubik’s Cube.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This WAS supposed to be a one-off. But then there was a prompt on tumblr, and this followed.
> 
> My contribution to the greatest new tag, '#Sideswipe can't even.'

Sunstreaker was grateful that Sideswipe had closed the washracks door behind him, but REALLY, did he have to be so loud?! It sounded like an Earthling seabird was trying to take flight in there, complete with the repetitious flapping and _squawking._ Or maybe he’d found a snake and was trying to kill it at a very high rate of speed. Or he was trying to make traditional Japanese mochi. Or was trying to rapidly hammer a noodle into a tiny hole. 

It made it very hard to concentrate on the datapad that he was reading.

When Sideswipe had finished Sunstreaker thought that he could concentrate again, but in less than a breem a feeling of _alarm_ passed through their bond.

“Uh-oh,” came a muffled voice from the washracks, followed by the hollow echo of the tiled walls.

The golden mech lifted his head. “What do you mean, uh-oh?”

“It’s crooked.”

“...Crooked?”

“Yeah. The tip’s all wonky. It looks like a “J” now.”

Sunstreaker gagged a little at the imagery. “Well fix it, for frag’s sake!”

There was a grunt from the washracks. And then another. And a third.

“Ow. Uh...nope. It keeps going back like that.”

“What did you do?!”

“I was holding it and--”

“ _Nevermind._ Just...go to Ratchet or something! I dunno!”

“I can’t exactly walk into medbay with it in my hand!” He paused. “...Well I _could,_ but…”

“Don’t. Please don’t.”

“Then what am I supposed to...Oh, I know!”

There was shuffling from behind the door. Sunstreaker's curiosity was beaten down by his good sense, and he sneered as he tried to settle back down with what had been a good datapad until now.

...There was absolutely no reason for any of the Autobots to have programed sound effects included with their functions. But Sideswipe didn’t seem to have gotten the memo about that.

Sunstreaker heard the _“click-CLICK!”_ sound that would normally have only come from a human’s camera.

“Really?” he barked.

“What?! Maybe Ratchet can tell me how to fix it from the medbay.”

“He’s going to scream at you in text-form.”

“Good, I can scroll right past that.”

There was another _“vooop”_ of a message being sent over their comm lines. It didn’t normally make that noise, and Red Alert would have Sideswipe’s head if he didn’t turn that off before the next stealth mission began.

“And now, we wait.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“...So how about that local sports team, huh?”

Sunstreaker wanted to hit himself in the face with the datapad. Or Sideswipe’s. No, hit himself first, then Sideswipe. He didn’t want whatever was currently staining Sideswipe’s frame to transfer from the datapad to him.

Their bond echoed with a shared _startle_ as Prowl’s voice suddenly boomed over the external comms.

_“Prowl to Sideswipe.”_

“Yo!” Sunstreaker couldn’t see his brother, but knew that he was giving the wall a two-fingered salute. Or a salute of another kind. Maybe with their current source of problems.

 _“Report to my office,_ now.”

The comm abruptly ended with a crackle, similar to a human phone being slammed down.

There was a blessed peace in the twins’ shared dormitory for a second. It was nearly quiet enough that if a guest had been sitting nearby, they would have heard the _tick-tick-tick_ of Sunstreaker’s cortex putting the pieces of the puzzle together. 

They also would have heard the buzzing _ding!_ the moment that he figured it out and his optics lit up.

“Did you just--?!” His vocalizer cut off with a squeak as his processor recalculated the chances that he was correct, and (sadly) acknowledged that he most likely was.

The door to the washracks crashed open, and Sideswipe stormed out while hurriedly jamming his interface panel back into place. “I thought it was going to Ratchet!” he snarled.

“Did you seriously just send it to--?!”

He couldn’t finish.

Sunstreaker’s _howls_ of laughter must have echoed through the entire Ark because when Sideswipe stalked out the door, swearing his brother up and down and flipping the bird at him as he went, more than one mech was also sticking their heads out their doors to observe what could have reversed the twins’ roles so dramatically.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sideswipe was having a hard time sitting down. It _hurt._ He wanted to go med-bay, not get lectured on the simple mistake of attaching the wrong address to a picture.

Prowl, though, didn’t look like he was going to let him go anytime soon. 

The Autobot tactician made sure that the door was locked behind Sideswipe before stomping over to his side of the desk, doorwings held high and quivering. He only did that when extremely angry or extremely nervous. Sideswipe had the gift of causing both often enough to identify the gesture.

He tried to hide how he was squirming in his seat, trying to get comfortable and failing, but Prowl narrowed his optics at him until he stopped wiggling. The officer then smoothly took his own seat.

“Sideswipe.” 

He wasn’t folding his hands in front of him on the desk like he usually did. Ooooh, that wasn’t good. Prowl liked to lace his fingers when he was controlling a rage. If he didn’t do that, he wasn’t going to hold back.

“Yeah?” 

“Do you know why I’ve asked for you?”

Sideswipe sighed, and rolled his optics up to the ceiling.

“Because I accidentally sent you a picture of my spike,” he muttered.

He was ready for the lecture. Just let him get it over with so that he could go to Ratchet.

Prowl paused.

...Prowl paused for too long.

“Wait. You _accidentally_ sent it?”

“Yeah. You think that I would actually--?”

Sideswipe leveled his optics back at Prowl. Then bulged them.

Oh.

 _That’s_ where the officer’s hands had gone.

“Oooh. Oh woooow.”

They stared at each other for far too long. Long enough that Prowl’s doorwings slowly drooped far, far down, and him to clear his vocalizer as he reach down and tucked it back in.

Hoping to clear up the misunderstanding before the situation could get any worse, Sideswipe abruptly stood up, fumbled with his interface panel, swore as it clattered to the ground, and pulled out the problem of the orn.

“You see, it’s kind of wonky at the end…”

He swore that he didn’t know that Prowl’s engine could shriek at that high of a pitch.


End file.
